Lessons Learned While Being Sick

This week has been the week of sickness for Ben and me. Last Wednesday, Ben got sick. It was pretty much a really bad sinus infection, possibly the flu though. He hasn't been able to taste food for days because of how bad his sinuses were clogged. I made some pretty awesome dinners over the weekend that will have to be repeated apparently because his mouth had "the sense that it tasted good," but he couldn't quite taste it. Lol. Anyway, now I am sick. With the flu or food poisoning. It's pretty bad. I haven't been this sick since I had mono in high school.

The point is, I had Ben give me a blessing last night in the midst of my trips to the bathroom. Something really struck me. Before I asked him, I was thinking to myself, do I have the faith to be healed? Yes, but I'm not sure if He will heal me. But I went with my faith to be healed and asked for a blessing. Of course, God won't heal us all the time (I, of all people, should know that) because there is something to learn. In the blessing, He told me to take advantage of this opportunity to be grateful for my health.

It got me thinking. As I have healed from my back and neck injuries, I have kind of taken the healing process for granted. I have thought, "I deserve to have good health" because of how much my body has gone through, then I get mad when I have setbacks. So, as I am sick, I have thought a lot about how grateful I am to have good health most of the time. I am a healthy person. I exercise, I eat right (most of the time), and most of the time I can afford to buy the fruits and vegetables I want to eat. I don't get sick too often. So I really am blessed that overall, I am a healthy person. I am also blessed to have a home and a husband who loves me. I can't imagine being sick and not having a home. Or having only one pair of clothes to wear. Or just being outside, sick, in this cold weather. I'm lucky I have a home. And Ben has taken such good care of me. He borrowed movies from our neighbor and watched the Incredibles with me. He went to the store at 10 pm to get sprite and herbal tea for me. If I were alone, being sick would be a lot harder.

Thanks to Pres. Monson's ABCs from the January Ensign, I have been really working on being optimistic and having a good attitude. I am grateful for the many blessings I have in my life. These ones I have named are just a simple few.  

I win

Friday. I came home from a busy day of work and school excited for the date night that Ben had planned. After all day of anticipating, I finally got home and walked down our little stairs to this:

I win. I have the best husband in the world!

Now that school is started

...our lives are crazy once again. No more of the blissful days spent with family and friends. No, we are crazy and busy, and trying to love every second of it.

I am enrolled in my last semester of classes. I student teach in the fall. This semester is happy-sad for me. I'm on the verge of becoming a teacher, yet I am not ready to be done learning. There are so many things that I just love to do and learn about, and I don't want to graduate yet. Actually, I would love to graduate, but I still want to just take classes and not be stressed about the grades. There are so many more classes I wish I could take! I want to take more painting and photography classes. And music classes. And health and nutrition. And humanities. And the advanced cooking class. And retake interior design because it was so much fun! I also want to take Shakespeare, some other English Lit classes, and history of wars! Can you see this problem I am having? The good news is that I am on the right track for my profession. What other way to share my love for learning than to be a teacher?

The good news is I have already done some research, and there are community painting and photography classes I can take. There are also plenty of books I can read to learn about the things that I am interested in, so everything will be okay. I am just so impatient, and I want to learn and do everything now! I also want to run a half marathon and triathlon. Just so everyone knows.

I am so excited about this semester. I am taking Adolescent Development, Teaching Methods, advanced writing (management communication or something like that), Photography, Family History and Genealogy, AND swimming and volleyball! I am also on basketball and wallyball intramural teams. And I am starting yoga because my chiropractor told me to. So. This semester is seriously looking good for me, even though it will be so busy. Since the semester started, I have found a passion that has been lost for a long time. Maybe because I am starting to see things differently. Maybe because I am so close to graduating and moving on with life. Definitely because of the relationship I am developing with God. But I feel like I am returning back to myself. The one who existed before the car accident. I love my classes. I love doing (most) of my homework. I love art. And exercising. I love Ben. I just love everything right now!

Ben is finishing up school this year too. He still has this semester and Fall, but he is getting so close! It's a little bit of a struggle for him to come back to school after doing a semester of purely internship, especially with a job that he absolutely loves. He is lucky to have this job. It was honestly divine intervention, and we feel really blessed to have the Lord's hand in our lives.

He is also going to be very busy all around. He is on two basketball teams: one is intramurals and one is church ball. He is the deacons adviser (or whatever it is actually called) and the assistant scout master in our ward, so he gets to spend lots of time with the youth and on campouts! I am jealous :) But I love my calling too. With continuing his internship part time, full time school, basketball, and church, it's going to be a crazy semester. The good new is we are in the same swimming class!!! We have also committed ourselves to a date night every week where it is just us, and we are trying to be more creative with our dates. It has been really good for our relationship so far :D

We love you all. Thanks for reading this kind of long post! If I kept up to date more often, the posts wouldn't be quite as long... haha.

Christmas Break Catch Up

Christmas break was a blast! I'm just going to post some pictures to keep yall up to date :)

Our Christmas together before we left

Noel guarding her precious deer-leg she found

Family Bowling Night

Krista got a bullseye!

Baxter's Christmas sweater (courtesy of my mom) :)

Go Cougars!

Haybale tag... Childhood memories restored :)

The First Big Adventure in Arkansas

We traveled to Arkansas to visit my family for Christmas. It's quite different than any visit we have had to Texas... and it has been AWESOME! There is so much to do with my family. We jumped on the trampoline, played slam ball, swung on the swing, made smores and a dutch oven dinner, played darts (which I have won almost every time), ping pong, Apples to Apples, and also got to experience the first Walton store and Walmart museum (which was really interesting, actually). Today was the real adventure though. The boys went golfing, so my sisters and I stayed home and played Mario Party, had a dance party, did darts, slam ball, and then went for a bike ride.

I was really excited to ride bikes. The boys were home from golfing, so Zach wanted to come with us. I was looking forward to riding bikes on all the hills, coasting down the hills, getting an adrenaline rush and stuff. I wasn't expecting any real danger because I feel confident with my ability to handle the bike. However, when we went to the garage to get the bikes, I did say, "Everyone get a helmet," which no one wanted to do, and I was talked out of wasting our precious time to look for one for me. I checked the brakes on my bike and noted that the back one wasn't working, so I had to be careful. But the first one seemed fine, so I wasn't too worried.

As we started out, we had to go uphill to get off our street. It was a beast. When we got to the top, I decided we should go down this street that ends in a circle driveway, thinking it would be safer because there were only two houses on the street and pretty much no traffic. Not being familiar with the area, I did not think about the steepness of the hill or anything of that nature. I led the pack of us going down the hill, at first whooping with excitement with the rush of coasting down the hill. Looking back, this whole experience is funny to me.

My whooping turned into terrified screams as the hill got steeper and I realized that my brakes were not working. Period. My first thought was, oh crap I am not wearing a helmet. Then I started screaming at Zach that my brakes weren't working, but of course, he couldn't do anything for me except laugh. I got to this slight uphill part that made me slow down a little, so I started feeling better about it and thought, ok, I won't die. I was still going really fast, and then I went down hill again and picked up even more speed. As I approached the circular driveway in the end, I saw that there was a basketball hoop knocked over on it's side, but that there was still room to go around it as I made the turn to go back up the hill. I still wanted to stop (and also wasn't sure I could made that sharp of a turn), so I started dragging my feet on the ground until I thought my ankles might break off and picked them back up. I finally got to the quick turn to go back up hill, but I didn't make it. I slammed into this small pole, falling off the bike and landing in a thorny bush. My right leg was completely twisted in the bike, and I felt like I couldn't move my leg. I thought I broke my knee. But I didn't :) After I got over the initial shock of falling off my bike and not being able to move my knee, I got up and walked around. Zach saw the whole thing, and he tried so hard not to laugh. I'm sure the crash looked ridiculous. Emily and Krista arrived after I had already fallen, and they were concerned that I had hit that basketball hoop and knocked it over. Now that would have been a crazy crash. It was really funny when Emily asked me if that had happened.

But I walked the whole way home, and by the time I got home my knee felt a lot better. I tried to keep myself moving all day so I didn't let it tighten up. I even still went swimming this afternoon. Now that I have slowed down and have let my body rest, I am kind of in pain everywhere, mostly in my right leg though, and my neck and back just feel shaken up and slightly in shock, but I feel really lucky that my crash wasn't worse. It really wasn't as bad as it could have been, and the more I think about it, the more I laugh at myself. It's just so dumb and funny, and for some reason it makes me happy lol.

Tomorrow we are going to Crystal Bridges (art museum), and I am so excited! Then we have my family's ward Christmas party, then it's Christmas Eve, then Christmas! Merry Christmas everyone!

We did some Christmas baking!

For more information, visit my other blog.

Yes, we did some Christmas baking with our first free day from work and school, and it was awesome.
6+ hours in the kitchen. Creaming, mixing, beating, baking, and cleaning! We are beasts :) It was AWESOME!

Playing in the kitchen is a fun activity for us to do together. We smashed bags of candy canes against the walls to crush them, we danced to Christmas music, we did LOTS of dishes, and in the end, we got to deliver plates to some of our neighbors and friends.

 Look at how staticy the wrappers are! They were stuck to the walls and everything!

Car Accident Update!

I forgot to post this earlier!
I am doing awesome! I switched chiropractors and he has made the biggest difference in how well my back is healing. I have made great strides over the past couple months, and I hope to continue to do so well! I currently can swim 14 laps in the pool and run a mile and a half. By the end of Christmas break, I hope to be at 2.5 miles, and I'm taking a swimming class next semester, so that will help with my swimming abilities :) We are so excited with the possibilities this opens up for us now! I can hike and play basketball and do lots of stuff that have been off limits for the past year.
Also, the case is closed! No more dealing with insurance companies and wondering if medical bills with get paid or not! It's a great feeling :)

 One day, we will grow old and be like this, walking around the track still :)